Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America pptx

The Governor's Leave-TakingThe Entry into Apalachen The Character of the Country Adventures in and out of Apalachen The Ominous Note at Aute Our Departure from Aute The Building of the B

Cabeza de Vaca's

Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America

[1542]

Translated and Annotated by Cyclone Covey

Text Copyright (c)1961 by The Crowell-Collier Publishing Company [but not renewed]

Reprinted 1983 by University of New Mexico Press, ISBN 0-8263-0656-X pbk

[with an Epilogue by William T Pilkington Copyright 1983, not reprinted here],

Cordially dedicated to Vernon A Chamberlin

Contents

Preface [by Translator]

Proem

The Sailing of the Armada

The Governor's Arrival at Xagua with a Pilot

Our Landing in Florida

The Governor's Leave-Taking

The Entry into Apalachen

The Character of the Country

Adventures in and out of Apalachen

The Ominous Note at Aute

Our Departure from Aute

The Building of the Barges and Our Departure from the Bay

The First Month at Sea after Departing the Bay of Horses

Treachery in the Night Ashore

The Disappearance of the Greek

The Indian Assault and the Arrival at a Great River

The Splitting-Up of the Flotilla

A Sinking and a Landing

What Befell Oviedo with the Indians

The Indians' Hospitality before and after a New Calamity

News of Other Christians

Why We Named the Island "Doom"

The Malhado Way of Life

How We Became Medicine-Men

My Years as a Wandering Merchant

The Journey to the Great Bay

The Coming of the Indians with Dorantes, Castillo, and Estevánico

The Story of What Had Happened to the Others

Figueroa's Further Story of What Had Happened to the Others

Last Up-Dating on the Fate of the Others

The Tribal Split and News of the Remaining Barge

Our Escape

Our Success with Some of the Afflicted and My Narrow Escape

More Cures

The Story of the Visitation of Mr Badthing

Our Life among the Avavares and Arbadaos

Our Pushing On

Customs of that Region

Indian Warfare

An Enumeration of the Nations and Tongues

A Smoke; a Tea; Women and Eunuchs

Four Fresh Receptions

A Strange New Development

Rabbit Hunts and Processions of Thousands

My Famous Operation in the Mountain Country

The Severe Month's March to the Great River

The Cow People

The Long Swing-Around

The Town of Hearts

The Buckle and the Horseshoe Nail

The First Confrontation

The Falling-Out with Our Countrymen

The Parley at Culiacán

The Great Transformation

Arrival in Mexico City

What Became of the Others Who Went to the Indies

Afterword

Epilogue [copyrighted, not printed here]

Index [not reprinted here]

Preface

THIS SIXTEENTH-CENTURY odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca's is one of the great true epics of history It is thesemi-official report to the king of Spain by the ranking surviving officer of a royal expedition to conquerFlorida which fantastically miscarried

Four out of a land-force of 300 men by wits, stamina and luck found their way back to civilization aftereight harrowing years and roughly 6,000 miles over mostly unknown reaches of North America They werethe first Europeans to see and live to report the interior of florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and

northernmost Mexico; the 'possum and the buffalo; the Mississippi and the Pecos; pine-nut mash and

mesquite-bean flour; and a long string of Indian Stone Age tribes What these wanderers merely heard andsurmised had just as great an effect on subsequent events as what they learned at first hand

Their sojourn "to the sunset," as they told certain of the Indians in the latters' idiom, took on a great addedinterest and value in the 1930's with the convergent discovery of Carl Sauer and Cleve Hallenbeck that

Cabeza de Vaca and his companions had traveled, for the most part, over Indian trails that were still traceable.The thorough work of these two distinguished professors, plus that of innumerable others in such disciplines

as archaeology, anthropology, cartography, geology, climatology, botany, zoology and history, has givensurprisingly sharp definition to much of the old narrative that had hitherto seemed vague and baffling Thepresent translation is the

first to take advantage of the scientific findings of half a century which culminate in Sauer and Hallenbeck.Hallenbeck, in fact, incorporates and supersedes all previous scholarship on the subject (çlvar Núñez Cabeza

de Vaca: The Journey and Route of the First European to Cross the Continent of North America: Glendale,Calif.: Arthur H Clark, 1940)

It was çlvar Núñez's mother, Dona Teresa, whose surname was Cabeza de Vaca, or Head of a Cow This nameoriginated as a title of honor from the decisive Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morenas on 12 July

1212, when a peasant named Alhaja detected an unguarded pass and marked it with a cow's skull A surpriseattack over this pass routed the Moorish enemy King Sancho of Navarre thereupon created the novel title,Head of a Cow, and bestowed it in gratitude upon the peasant Alhaja çlvar Núñez proudly adopted thissurname of his mother's, though that of his father, de Vera, had a lustre from recent imperialism Pedro deVera, the sadistic conqueror of the Canaries, was çlvar Núñez's grandfather çlvar Núñez, the eldest of hisparents' four children, spoke proudly of his paternal grandfather It may have been significant for the boy'slater career in America that he listened to old Pedro repeat his tales of heroism, and that he had a childhoodfamiliarity with the conquered Guanche savages with whom the grandfather staffed his household as slaves.çlvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who was born about 1490, grew up in the little Andalusian wine center of Jérez,just a few miles from Cádiz and fewer still from the port San Lúcar de Barrameda at the mouth of the

Guadalquivir This is the port Magellan sailed from in September 1519 and Cabeza de Vaca, seven years andten months later Cabeza de Vaca was about ten years old when Columbus, aged forty-nine, returned to Cádiz

in chains The boy may well have seen the autocratic admiral thus just as he himself was to be returned to the

In the tradition of the landed gentry, Cabeza de Vaca turned to a military career while still in his teens Whenabout twenty-one, he marched in the army which King Ferdinand sent to aid Pope Julius II in 1511, and sawaction in the Battle of Ravenna of 11 April 1512 in which 20,000 died He served as ensign at Gaeta outsideNaples before returning to Spain and to the service of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1513 in Seville, themetropolis of his home region In the Duke's service, Cabeza de Vaca survived the Comuneros civil war(including the recapture of the Alcázar, 16 September 1520, from the Sevillian rebels), the battles of

Tordesillas and Villalar, and finally, warfare against the French in Navarre

He was a veteran of sufficient distinction by 1527 to receive the royal appointment of second in command inthe Narváez expedition for the conquest of Florida, a territory which at that time was conceived as extendingindefinitely westward This appointment saved him from another Italian campaign; Charles V's Spanish andGerman troops ingloriously sacked Rome itself barely a month before the Narváez expedition sailed Cabeza

de Vaca married, apparently, only a short time before the sailing, though there is a bare possibility that hepostponed marriage to his return

The red-bearded, one-eyed chief commander, or governor, Pamfilo de Narváez, was a grasping bungler Helost an eye when he took an expedition from Cuba to Mexico in jealousy to arrest Cortes Cortes first wonover most of his 900 troops and then roundly defeated the rest Narváez was arrested wounded As governor

of Cuba, he had calmly sat on a horse one day and watched his men massacre 2,500 Indians who were

distributing food to the Spaniards It was his stupid decision to separate his cavalry and infantry from theirsustaining ships that sealed the doom of his expedition in Florida as Cabeza de Vaca forewarned in vain.One of the interesting undercurrents of Cabeza de Vaca's narrative, which refrains from critical remarks aboutthe Governor, is the implicit antagonism between them Narváez deliberately sent Cabeza de Vaca on

dirty-work reconnaissances, sent him into a possibly hostile village first, put him in charge of the more

dangerous vanguard while he brought up the rear, and tried to get rid of him by assigning him to the ships.The climax of their rivalry came when Cabeza de Vaca dramatized his correctness in asking the Governor fororders while the Governor was running out on the majority of his expeditionaries

The modem reader may at first find himself carried along by his interest in the expeditionaries' struggle forsurvival, but in time will likely grow increasingly interested in the struggle for survival of the aborigines.Cabeza de Vaca's ability to survive depended in large measure on his capacity to adjust to them and identifywith them His induplicable anthropological information on the paleolithic and neolithic cultures of coast,forest, river, plains, mountain, and desert tribes presents hitherto untapped "news of the human race" on aconsiderable scale Anthropologists and psychologists can make much of such data as, for instance, theprevalence of illnesses due to hysteria The reactions of the retreating expeditionaries to a variety of extremetests constitute an important section of the "news of the human race" in this little book One of their first tests,though not so mortal a one, was the blandishments of Santo Domingo Another of the preliminary tests akind of harbinger of the tragedies to come was the hurricane that caught the expedition in Cuba And amongthe many firsts of Cabeza de Vaca's narrative, this is the first description in literature of a West Indies

induce his fellow Spaniards to rush on ahead, but went himself.

He must have had a penchant for austerity In time, all four survivors were thriving on it walking all day andeating only one meal, a spare one at evening, and feeling no weariness Even the Indians were amazed Onesuspects that his companions had less zest for this life and harbored some resentment at being thus driven.They had twice given him up for dead and gone on without verification

The Indians found Castillo the most attractive most of the time; and it becomes an interesting puzzle to try to

ascertain why, from the limited evidence given Captain Castillo was a well-bred hidalgo from the university

town of Salamanca, the son of a distinguished and learned father He was the least bold of the four survivorsand the one who slipped most quickly and quietly into obscurity when the trek was over He is the one whotaught the other four the art of faith-healing; yet he felt the most inhibitions in exercising the art because of asense of unworthiness Maybe Castillo was really the one responsible for deepening Cabeza de Vaca's

mechanical religiousness to genuine devoutness Cabeza de Vaca, in any event, learned a lot Both Castilloand Dorantes, we see early in the narrative in Florida, had a certain rapport with Cabeza de Vaca; and

Dorantes intended to continue in association with him after the journey's end in Mexico City

The Pimas in northern Sonora presented Dorantes with the more than 600 opened deer hearts, and desertIndians in New Mexico had given him a precious copper rattle He seems gradually to have displaced Castillo

as the Indian favorite; but it is Cabeza de Vaca who emerges clearly dominant at the last

When he returned to Spain in 1537, ten hard years older and wiser, his consuming ambition was to go back tothe region in which he had so frequently faced death, as first in command A half-year's delay in getting home

to Spain, occasioned by the capsizing of his intended ship at Veracruz, may have been the factor which gavethe leadership to De Soto instead De Soto did all he could to engage Cabeza de Vaca as his second in

command, but after Cabeza de Vaca's experience under the incompetent Narváez, he could not consent toseconding any commander again One reason he wished to go back to "Florida" was his belief in the land'spossibilities for agriculture, grazing, and mining especially for gold, silver, emeralds, and turquoises He alsohad become convinced that a fabulous aboriginal nation existed in the north, not far beyond the perimeter ofhis recent circuit, and another on the Pacific, which he believed much nearer the northern pueblos than wasremotely possible The evidence he gives of these opulent places quickly convinced many others They, infact, leaped to connect the unseen pueblos across the desert with the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola, whichsupposedly had been founded somewhere in the west in the eighth century by seven fugitive bishops

The evidence he withheld was equally convincing Not forgetting that he had gone out on a military

expedition responsible to the Crown, he felt he should not divulge much of his new knowledge before he hadfirst reported to the king He also did not wish anyone else to get the jump on him in picking the "Florida"plum; so he hated to divulge what might entice others to apply to the king or what would help ensure theirsuccess He and Dorantes hoped to return to the north together Their very reticence fired imaginations andgreed and became in itself a kind of proof of marvels The fact that Cabeza de Vaca inadvertently left his six

"emerald" arrowheads behind on the Sinaloa and could not produce the mere malachite specimens for

examination gave his guarded testimony about emeralds and other precious minerals uncontradictable

authority He, of course, believed them genuine; the turquoises he had been given actually were

When Cabeza de Vaca sincerely represented the possible riches of the unexplored country to the north inglowing terms to the viceroy (for the viceroy was the personal representative of the king), Mendoza promptlyset about acting on the intelligence Both the Fray Marcos and Coronado expeditions materialized from thedirect stimulus of Cabeza de Vaca's return and reports He repeated his confidence in the new region toCharles V in person, as well as in his full, printed report which he shared with the public in October 1542.(The viceroy had earlier transmitted a report to the king which has not survived.) At the time of De Soto'spreparations, when Cabeza de Vaca's hopes of leading a Florida expedition had long since collapsed, he still

But he did confidentially advise them by all means to sell their estates and go In the long run, he far

underestimated the potential of this new region, but a terrible disillusionment with it inevitably set in after afew more expeditions went through the sort of suffering the Narváez "conquerors" had experienced

There was a more compelling reason than riches for Cabeza de Vaca's sanguine view: He had learned to lovethe land as beautiful and the Indians as surpassingly handsome, strong, and intelligent In the midst of hissufferings, he caught a vision of the brotherhood of man He wanted to bring the Indians civilization andChristianity and to establish a humane order among them He had found that he could cure their sicknesses,communicate Christian teachings, and compose their tribal hostilities, leaving the lands he passed through inpeace The immediate result of his return still 900 miles before he reached Mexico City was to stop theslave raids in Sonora and Sinaloa and induce the terrified refugee population to return and rebuild their

villages and cultivate the soil once more In his strongest language, he urged an unrapacious, peaceful winning

of the Indians to king and Christ He went so far as to say that this was the only sure way to "conquer" them.The great irony of his impressive demonstration is the scale of the brutality with which the lesson was

at the last thought only of his own survival, and did not survive

Since De Soto had already received the royal commission for Florida (by the time Cabeza de Vaca got back to

Spain), the king came through with the alternative appointment of adelantado (governor) of the considerable

South American provinces of the Río de la Plata, to which Cabeza de Vaca sailed in 1540

His first concern on assuming office was to rescue the Indian-beleaguered and disease-wasting colony ofAsunción Instead of the year-long sea route via Buenos Aires, he chose to lead an expedition directly

overland 1000 miles across unknown and supposedly impenetrable jungles, mountains, and cannibal villages

He accomplished this successfully, barefoot, from late November 1541 to late March 1542, from SantaCatalina Island via Iguazú Falls The following summer he led an even more remarkable expedition about thesame distance up the Paraguay in search of the legendary Golden City of Manoa Extreme privation,

particularly during the tropical rains of the fall, forced him to turn back when his men would go no further.Back at Asunción, he fell victim to intrigue and fever He had systematically prohibited enslaving, raping, andlooting of the Indians which were what the majority of the Spaniards had come for So they deposed him It

is a more complicated story than that, however The soldiers resented his dealing gently and as a divine agent.(He required them to transport a fine camp bed for himself through the jungles.) They returned him

wretchedly to Spain in chains in 1543

Not until 1551 did the Council for the Indies get round to trying him, and then they gave credence to theunscrupulous lieutenant governor who had led the mutiny in La Plata, and sentenced Cabeza de Vaca tobanishment to Africa for eight years His wife loyally spent all her fortune in his behalf and, finally, the kingawoke from his habitual stupor, annulled the sentence, awarded Cabeza de Vaca a pension, and placed him onthe Audiencia He died in honor in 1557 His account of his South American adventures, which is three timeslonger than that of his North American journey, was bound with the second edition of the latter in 1555 underthe title Comentarios

Note on the Text

The title of the North American narrative was La Relación (The Relation) The second edition had a running

are noted in the following translation wherever important The 1542 edition, published at Zamora, has nochapter titles, only periodic breaks in the text An editor added titles for the 1555 edition, published at

Valladolid They are sometimes inconsistent in style and often miss the crux of the short chapters' content.The chapter divisions, furthermore, sometimes ignore the natural breaks in the narrative In the followingtranslation, the chapter divisions and titles have occasionally been altered to fit the text better The

paragraphing is also the translator's, on the same principle (Sixteenth-century books paragraphed

infrequently.)

Several passages have been transposed from their original out-of-place locations in the text; all of thesetranspositions are identified, and the reason for them should appear plain Interpolated material is given inbrackets, which are used in lieu of footnotes to speed and simplify the reading Clarifying information is kept

at a minimum to maintain the continuous flow of the narrative

Besides the original 1542 edition and the original 1555 edition of the Relación, there is also the valuable, andearlier, supplement known as the Joint Report It is a thirty-page summary of the sojourn drawn up by Cabeza

de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes in Mexico City in 1536 and delivered to the Audiencia at Santo Domingo byCabeza de Vaca on his homeward voyage Its difference in style from the Relación suggests Castillo as thepenman for his superior education The original of this document is not known to be in existence The earliestknown version of it from a 1539 copy appears in volume III, book 35, of Captain Gonzalo Fernández deOviedo y Valdés: Historia General y Natural de las Indias, Islas y Tierra-Firme del Mar Océano, edited by D.José Amador de los Ríos (Madrid 1853) All three of these primary sources have been collated in the

(Century, 1933), documents the explorer's early life

Cabeza de Vaca's dates are Old Style To correlate them to our present calendar, add ten days The change ofNew Year's from March 25 to January 1 has, however, already been made in the translation

Cabeza de Vaca' s league seems to be the 3.1-mile Spanish league of his time rather than the 2.6-mile, though

he may use the latter occasionally Even his sea distances seem to be in terms of the 3.1-mile league instead ofthe longer nautical league In any case, the distances are estimates They are often amazingly accurate, butstarvation, deathly weariness, and oppressive fright more often interfered with mensural judgment Theestimates therefore usually err on the side of exaggeration, though by any reckoning at any time the distancestraversed are vast

The translator-editor herewith acknowledges and thanks the New York Public Library for furnishing him with

a microfilm of the 1542 edition of the Relación and another of the 1555 edition of the Relación and

Comentarios, and the Library of Congress for a microfilm of the Joint Report from Oviedo's Historia; alsoMary Jaime and Esta Albright of the Interlibrary Loan and Special Services Departments of the OklahomaState University Library; and Marvin T Edmison and the OSU Research Foundation; and Richard P Cecil,

Wake Forest University

Sacred Caesarian Catholic Majesty:

AMONG ALL THE PRINCES who have reigned, I know of none who has enjoyed the universal esteem ofYour Majesty [Emperor Charles V] at this day, when strangers vie in approbation with those motivated byreligion and loyalty

Although everyone wants what advantage may be gained from ambition and action, we see everywhere greatinequalities of fortune, brought about not by conduct but by accident, and not through anybody's fault but asthe will of God Thus the deeds of one far exceed his expectation, while another can show no higher proof ofpurpose than his fruitless effort, and even the effort may go unnoticed

I can say for myself that I undertook the march abroad, on royal authorization, with a firm trust that myservice would be as evident and distinguished as my ancestors', and that I would not need to speak to becounted among those Your Majesty honors for diligence and fidelity in affairs of state But my counsel andconstancy availed nothing toward those objectives we set out to gain, in your interests, for our sins In fact, noother of the many armed expeditions into those parts has found itself in such dire straits as ours, or come to sofutile and fatal a conclusion

My only remaining duty is to transmit what I saw and heard in the nine years I wandered lost and miserableover many remote lands I hope in some measure to convey to Your Majesty not merely a report of positionsand distances, flora and fauna, but of the customs of the numerous, barbarous people I talked with and dweltamong, as well as any other matters I could hear of or observe My hope of going out from among thosenations was always small; nevertheless, I made a point of remembering all the particulars, so that should Godour Lord eventually

please to bring me where I am now, I might testify to my exertion in the royal behalf

Since this narrative, in my opinion, is of no trivial value for those who go in your name to subdue thosecountries and bring them to a knowledge of the true faith and true Lord and bring them under the imperialdominion, I have written very exactly Novel or, for some persons, difficult to believe though the thingsnarrated may be, I assure you they can be accepted without hesitation as strictly factual Better than to

exaggerate, I have minimized all things; it is enough to say that the relation is offered Your Majesty for truth

I beg that it may be received as homage, since it is the most one could bring who returned thence naked

: The Sailing of the Armada

ON 17 JUNE 1527, Governor Pámfilo de Narváez left the port of San Lúcar de Barrameda authorized andcommanded by Your Majesty to conquer and govern the provinces which should be encountered from theRiver of Palms [the Río Grande] to the cape of Florida His expedition consisted of five ships with about 600

men and the following officers (for they will have to be mentioned): Cabeza de Vaca, Treasurer and alguacil

mayor [provost marshall]; Alonso Enriquez, Comptroller; Alonso de Solfs, Quartermaster to Your Majesty

and Inspector; Juan Suárez, a Franciscan friar, Commissary; and four more Franciscan friars

We arrived at the island of Santo Domingo [about September 17] and there tarried nearly 45 days gatheringprovisions and particularly horses, during which time the local inhabitants, by promises and proposals,

seduced more than 140 of our men to desert

From that island we sailed to Santiago [de Cuba] where, for some days, the Governor recruited men andfurther furnished himself with arms and horses lt fell out there that a prominent gentleman, Vasco Porcallo, ofTrinidad, a hundred leagues northwest on the same island, offered the Governor some provisions he hadstored at home if the Governor could go pick them up The Governor forthwith headed with the whole fleet toget them, but, on reaching Cabo de Santa Cruz, a port half way, he decided to send Captain [Juan] Pantoja[who had commanded the crossbowmen on Narváez's 1520 expedition to Mexico] to bring the stores back inhis ship For greater security, the Governor sent me along with another ship, while he himself anchored withthe remaining four (he had bought an additional ship at Santo Domingo)

When we reached the port of Trinidad, Vasco Porcallo conducted Captain Pantoja to the town, a league away,while I stayed at sea with the pilots, who said we ought to get out of there as fast as possible, for it was a verybad port where many vessels had been lost Since what happened to us there was phenomenal, I think it willnot be foreign to the purpose of my narrative to relate it here

The next morning gave signs of bad weather Rain started falling and the sea rose so high that I gave the menpermission to go ashore; but many of them came back aboard to get out of the wet and cold, unwilling to trekthe league into town A canoe, meanwhile, brought me a letter from a resident of the town requesting me tocome for the needed provisions that were there I excused myself, saying I could not leave the ships At noonthe canoe returned with a more urgent letter, and a horse was brought to the beach for me I gave the sameanswer as before, but the pilots and people aboard entreated me to go in order to hasten the provisions as fast

as possible; they greatly feared the loss of both ships by further delay in this port

So I went to the town, first leaving orders with the pilots that should the south wind (which is the one whichoften wrecks vessels here) whip up dangerously, they should beach the ships at some place where the men andhorses could be saved I wanted to take some of the men with me for company, but they said the weather wastoo nasty and the town too far off; but tomorrow, which would be Sunday, they intended to come, with God'shelp, and hear Mass

An hour after I left, the sea began to rise ominously and the north wind blow so violently that the two boatswould not have dared come near land even if the head wind had not already made landing impossible Allhands labored severely under a heavy fall of water that entire day and until dark on Sunday By then the rainand tempest had stepped up until there was as much agitation in the town as at sea All the houses and

churches went down We had to walk seven or eight together, locking arms, to keep from being blown away.Walking in the woods gave us as much fear as the tumbling houses, for the trees were falling, too, and couldhave killed us We wandered all night in this raging tempest without finding any place we could linger as long

as half an hour in safety Particularly from midnight on, we heard a great roaring and the sound of manyvoices, of little bells, also flutes, tambourines, and other instruments, most of which lasted till morning, when

authenticated account of it and sent it back to Your Majesty.

On Monday morning we went down to the harbor but did not find the ships When we spied the buoys

belonging to them floating on the water, we knew the ships had been lost Hiking along the shore looking forsigns of them, we found nothing, so we struck through the marshy woods for about a quarter of a league[about three fourths of a mile] and came upon the little boat of one of the ships lodged in some treetops Tenleagues farther, along the coast, two bodies were found, belonging to my ship, but they had been so disfigured

by beating against the rocks that they could not be recognized Some lids of boxes, a cloak, and a quilt rent inpieces were also found, but nothing more

Sixty persons had been lost in the ships, and twenty horses Those who had gone ashore the day of our

arrival they may have numbered as many as thirty were all who survived of both ships

For some days we struggled with much hardship and hunger; for the provisions had been destroyed, also someherds The country was left in a condition piteous to behold: parched, bereft of grass and leaf, the trees

prostrate

Thus we lived until November 5, when the Governor put in with his four ships, which had run into a safeplace in time to live through the great storm The people who came in them, as well as those on shore, were sounnerved by what had happened that they feared to go on board in the winter Seconded by the townspeople,they prevailed on the Governor to spend it in Cuba He put the ships and crews in my charge to take to theport of Xagua [Jagua, at the entrance to the Bay of Cienfuegos], twelve leagues away, to pass the winter.There I remained until February 20

: The Governor's Arrival at Xagua with a Pilot

ON THAT DAY the Governor hove in with a brig he had bought in Trindad and, with him, a pilot by thename of Miruelo, who had been hired because he claimed he had been to the River of Palms and knew thewhole northern coast The Governor had also purchased another vessel, which he left beached at Havana withforty people and twelve horsemen under Captain Alvaro de la Cerda

The second day after the Governor arrived, his expedition set sail 400 men and 80 horses in four ships and abrig The touted pilot we had taken on ran the vessels aground in the shoals called Canarreo [doubtless one ofthe keys off the western point of Cuba]; and for fifteen days we stood stranded, the keels often scrapingbottom At last a storm from the south raised the water over the shoals enough to lift us off, though

dangerously

No sooner did we reach Guaniguanico than another tempest nearly finished us and, at Cape Corrientes

[southwestern Cuba], we had to battle yet another for three days Finally passing those places, we doubledCape Sant Anton [the westernmost tip of Cuba] and made for Havana handicapped by contrary winds

We got within twelve leagues and next day pointed to enter the harbor when a stout south wind drove ustoward Florida

We sighted land Tuesday, April 12 [1528], and sailed up the [west] coast On Holy Thursday we came toanchor in the mouth of a bay [perhaps Sarasota Bay], at the head of which we could see some houses andhabitations of Indians

: Our Landing in Florida

THAT SAME DAY [April 14] the comptroller Alonso Enríquez ventured to an island in the bay and called tothe Indians, who came and stayed with him quite a while, trading fish and venison for trinkets

The day following Good Friday the Governor debarked with as many men as the ships' little boats could

hold We found the buhíos [wigwams of a type which had an open shed attached] deserted, the Indians having fled by canoe in the night One of the buhíos was big enough to accommodate more than 300 people; the

others were smaller Amid some fish nets we found a gold rattle

Next day the Governor raised flags and took possession of the country in Your Majesty's name, exhibiting hiscredentials and receiving our acknowledgement of his office, according to Your Majesty's command We, forour part, laid our commissions before the Governor and he responded appropriately to each [Narváez, wegather much later, thought of himself as founding a town, La Cruz (The Cross), at this time.]

He then ordered the balance of the men to land, with the horses, of which only 42 had survived the storms andthe long passage at sea; these few were too thin and run down to be of much use

The Indians of the village returned next day and approached us Because we had no interpreter, we could notmake out what they said; but their many signs and threats left little doubt that they were bidding us to go.They, however, went away and interfered no further

: Our Penetration of the Country

THE DAY FOLLOWING, the Governor resolved to explore inland, taking the Commissary [Fray Suárez], theInspector [Solis], and me, together with forty men, including six horsemen, who could hardly have done muchgood

We headed northward until about the hour of vespers, when we came upon a very big bay which seemed toextend far inland [This would have been Tampa Bay.] We stayed there overnight, returning the next day toour base camp

The Governor ordered the brig to coast in search of the harbor which Miruelo, the pilot, had said he knew butwhich he so far had failed to find; he did not know where we were or where the port was from here TheGovernor further ordered that, in case this harbor could not be found, the brig should proceed to Havana, findthe ship Alvaro de la Cerda commanded, get them both provisioned, and return together to us

When the brig had gone, we struck inland again, the same men as before plus others We followed the shore

of the bay we had found and, after four leagues, captured four Indians We showed them some corn to seewhether they knew what it was, for we had so far come across no sign of any They indicated they would take

us where there was some and led us to their village at the head of the bay close by There they showed us alittle corn not yet fit to gather

We saw a number of crates there like those used for merchandising in Castile, each containing a dead mancovered with painted deerskins The Commissary took this for some form of idolatry and burned the cratesand corpses We also found pieces of linen and woolen cloth 32 and bunches of feathers like those of NewSpain And we saw some nuggets of gold [The Joint Report of Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes,written in Mexico in 1536 and delivered to the Audiencia at Santo Domingo by Cabeza de Vaca on his

homeward voyage in 1537, amplifies that the Governor gave the order for burning the dead bodies and theirboxes; that pieces of shoes and canvas and some iron were also found; and that the Indians said by signs thatthey had found these items in a vessel that had been wrecked in that bay The Joint Report makes it clear thatthe bodies were Europeans, and blames the friars, not just the Franciscan Commissary, for the burning.]

We inquired of the Indians by signs where these things came from They gave us to understand that very farfrom here was a province called Apalachen, where was much gold and plenty of everything we wanted [TheJoint Report specifies that it was the gold rather than all the items indiscriminately which came from

"Apalache." The Apalachee Indians lived in northwestern Florida, centering on the later Tallahassee and St.Marks Appalachee Bay and the Appalachian Mountains take their names from this tribe.]

Keeping these Indians for guides, we proceeded another ten or twelve leagues, to a village of fifteen houses,where we saw a large cornfield ready for harvest, some of the ears already dry After staying two days there,

we returned to the base camp and told the Comptroller and pilots what we had seen and what the Indians hadtold us

Next day, May 1, the Governor called the Commissary, Comptroller, Inspector, and me, also a sailor namedBartolomé Fernandez and a notary named Jeró de Alaniz, and divulged his intention of marching inland whilethe ships continued to coast on to a port which the pilots asserted lay close to the River of Palms What, theGovernor asked, did we think of this?

It seemed to me, I answered, that under no circumstances should we forsake the ships before they rested in asecure harbor which we controlled; that the pilots, after all, disagreed among themselves on every particularand did not so much as know where we then were; that we would be deprived of our horses in case we needed

entered an unknown country; and that we did not have supplies to sustain a march we knew not where nomore than a pound of biscuit and a pound of bacon per man being possible from the ships' stores I concludedthat we had better re-embark and look for a harbor and soil better suited to settle, since what we had so farseen was the most desert and poor that had ever been discovered in that region.

Our Commissary [Fray Suárez] took the exact opposite view He held that we should not embark but shouldkeep to the coast in quest of Pánuco [later renamed Tampico, at the mouth of the Pánuco River on the coast ofcentral Mexico the northernmost Spanish settlement, founded by Cortés himself in 1522], which the pilotssaid was only ten or fifteen leagues from here [but which was actually over 600 leagues, i.e., more than 1,800miles, via the coast]; that we could not miss it, since it extended inland a dozen leagues; that the first to comeupon it should wait for the other; that to embark would be to tempt God, after all the adversities we hadendured since leaving Spain so many storms, such losses of men and ships; that we should therefore marchalong the coast while the ships sailed along it till they joined at the same harbor

This struck everybody else but the Notary as the best course The Notary thought the ships should not be leftunless in a known, safe, populated harbor; that the Governor might then advance inland at his discretion

Seeing the Governor was going to overrule my objections, I required him, in the interest of Your Majesty, not

to quit the ships before putting them in a secure port, and to certify that I had said such, under the hand of theNotary The Governor replied that he concurred in the judgment of the Commissary and the other officers andthat I had no authority to make these requirements of him He then bade the Notary, instead, to certify that hewas breaking up the settlement he had founded, because the country lacked means of support, and was going

in search of the port [Pánuco] and a better land Thereupon he ordered the mustering and victualing of the menwho were to go with him

Then he turned to me and, in the presence of the whole council, said that since I so opposed and feared

marching inland, I should sail in charge of the ships and remaining men, and should establish a settlement inthe event I reached the port ahead of him I refused

That same evening, awhile after we had dispersed, he sent word begging me to reconsider, that he could nottrust anyone else to command the ships When I still refused, he wanted to know why I answered that I feltcertain he would never find the ships again, or they him, as anyone could predict from the woefully

inadequate preparation; that I would rather hazard the danger that lay ahead in the interior than give anyoccasion for questioning my honor by remaining safely aboard behind Seeing he could get nowhere with mehimself, he had others reason with and entreat me But I always gave the same answer

So he finally named a lieutenant, one Caravallo, to command the ships

: The Governor's Leave-Taking

ON SATURDAY, May 1 the day of this dispute the Governor ordered two pounds of buscuit and a halfpound of bacon rationed each man who was going with him; and so we took up our march into the interior.Our total force was 300, of whom 40 were horsemen Those riding horseback included the Commissary FraySuárez; another friar, Juan de Palos; three priests; and the frockless officers

We traveled [northward] for fifteen days on our rations without finding anything edible but palmettos [dwarffan-palms] like those of Andalusia In all that time we encountered not a single person, village, or house Atlast we came to a river [the Suwannee], which we swam and rode rafts across with great difficulty It took us aday to cross because of the swift current

On the other side, about 200 [Timucuan] Indians moved toward us The Govenor went to meet them andtalked in signs They gestured so menacingly that we fell upon them and seized five or six, who led us to theirhouses half a league away There we found quite a quantity of corn ripe for plucking To our Lord we liftedinfinite thanks for succoring us, who were yet young in trials, in our extremity; we were weak from hungerand weary

The third day after our arrival here, the Comptroller, Inspector, and I together petitioned the Governor to sendout a scouting party to seek a harbor, the Indians having told us the sea was not far off He said to stop talking

of the sea, it was remote; but since I had been the most insistent, he bade me go look for a port and take fortyfoot

So next day [May 18] I set forth with Captain Alonso del Castillo and forty men of his company

At noon we came upon sandy patches which seemed to stretch far inland We walked about a league and ahalf [two leagues, according to the Joint Report], wading nearly knee-deep in water, shells cutting our feetbadly Thus with great trouble we reached the river we had first crossed and which emptied into this bay.Unequipped for crossing it, we reported back to the Governor that we would have to re-ford the big river atthe place we had first gone over it, to get to the coast and ascertain if the bay had a harbor

He sent Captain Valenzuela next day with sixty foot [forty, according to the Joint Report] and six horse torecross the river and follow its course to the sea to see whether a harbor lay there

Valenzuela returned in two days to report that he had found the bay [the mouth of the Suwannee] but only aknee-deep, shallow expanse with no harbor He saw five or six canoes passing from one side to the other full

Apalachen His signs seemed to us to mean that he was an enemy of the Apalachee and would accompany usagainst them We gave him beads, little bells, and other trinkets, and he gave the Governor the deerskin hewore When he turned back, we followed

That night we came to a wide, deep, swift river [the Apalachicola], which we did not dare cross with rafts, soconstructed a canoe Again we were a whole day getting over Had the Indians wished to oppose us, they had

One of the mounted men, Juan Velásquez, a native of Cuéllar, impatiently rode into the river The violentcurrent swept him from his saddle He grabbed the reins but drowned with the horse The subjects of thatchief whose name turned out to be Dulchanchellin found the body of the beast and told us where in thestream below we likely would find the body of Cuéllar They went to look for it.

This death hit us hard, for until now not a man had been lost The horse, meanwhile, furnished a supper formany that night

The following day we made the chief's village, where he gave us corn In the night, one of the Christians whohad gone for water got shot with an arrow, but God pleased to spare him hurt All the Indians fled overnight,

as we discovered on pulling out next day

They began to reappear, however, as we filed along Apparently they had prepared for battle but, though wecalled to them, they withdrew and fell in behind us on the trail The Governor left some cavalry in ambush,who surprised the natives about to pass and seized three or four, whom we kept for guides

They led us through a difficult and marvelous country of vast forests, the trees astonishingly high So many ofthem had fallen that continual detours made the march laborious Many of the trees still standing had beenriven from top to bottom by bolts of lightning, which are common in that country of frequent tempests

So we toiled on until the day after St John's Day [June 17], when at last we came in sight of Apalachen,unsuspected by its inhabitants We gave many thanks to God to be near this destination, believing everything

we had been told about it and expecting an immediate end of our hardships In addition to the distance we hadcome over bad trails, we suffered terribly from hunger Once in a while we did find corn, but usually had totravel seven and eight leagues without any Also, many men developed raw wounds from the weight of theirarmor and other things they had to carry

But having virtually accomplished our objective, with its assurance of plentiful gold and food, we seemedalready to feel our pain and fatigue lifting

: The Entry into Apalachen

ON SIGHTING Apalachen [which was probably situated on or near the west bank of the Apalachicola], theGovernor ordered me with nine cavalry and fifty infantry to invade the village

The Inspector [Solis] and I accordingly marched in, to find only women and boys The men, however,

returned while we were walking about, and began discharging arrows at us They killed the Inspector's horseand shortly fled

We found a large stand of corn ready to pick, and a lot more already dried and stored; also many deerskinsand, with them, some small, poor-quality shawls woven of thread The women partially cover their nakednesswith such garments We also noted the bowls they grind corn m

The village consisted of forty low, small, thatch houses set up in sheltered places for protection from thefrequent storms It was surrounded by dense woods and many little lakes, into which numerous big trees hadfallen to become effective obstructions

: The Character of the Country

THE TERRAIN we had suffered through since first landing in Florida is mostly level, the soil sandy and stiff.Throughout are immense trees and open woods, containing nut varieties, laurels, a species called liquid-amber

39 [sweet-gum], cedars, junipers, live-oaks, pines, red-oaks, and low palmettos like those of Castile

Everywhere are lakes, large and small, some hard to cross because of their depth and/or profusion of fallentrees They have sand bottoms The lakes in the Apalachen country are far larger than any we had seen earlier.This province has many cornfields, and houses are scattered over the countryside as at Gelves [on the

Guadalquivir just south of Seville]

We saw three kinds of deer; rabbits and jackrabbits; bears and lions [panthers]; and other wild animals,including one [the opossum] which carries its young in a pouch on its belly until they are big enough to findfood by themselves; but, even then, if someone approaches while they are foraging, the mother will not runbefore the little ones get into her pouch [Evidently the expeditionaries saw no alligators.]

The country is very cold [rare for June days in Florida] It has fine pastures for cattle The wide variety ofbirds in abundance includes geese, ducks, royal drakes, ibises, egrets, herons, partridges, falcons,

marsh-hawks, sparrow-hawks, goshawks, and numerous other fowl [Why, then, did the soldiers do no

hunting?]

: Adventures in and out of Apalachen

TWO HOURS after we arrived in Apalachen, the Indians who had fled returned in peace to ask the release of

their women and children We released them The Governor, however, continued to hold one of their caciques

[chiefs], whereupon they grew agitated and attacked us the next day

They worked so fast, with such daring, that they fired the very houses we occupied We sallied out after thembut they fled to nearby swamps which, together with the big cornfields, kept us from harming them except forone Indian we killed

The day after that, Indians from a village on the opposite side of the lake attacked us in the same way,

escaping the same way, again losing a single man

We stayed 25 days [26, according to the Joint Report] in Apalachen, during which time we made three

reconnaissances, finding the country sparsely populated and hard to get through because of swamps, woods,

and lakes The cacique, as well as the other Indians we had been holding, confirmed our own observations

when we asked them about their country (The Indians we captured on our way to Apalachen were neighborsand enemies of the Apalachee.) Interrogated separately, they each said that Apalachen was the biggest town inthe region, that farther in, the inhabitants were fewer, more scattered, and far poorer, and that large lakes,dense forests, and vast deserts and barrens awaited us in the interior

When we asked about the country to the south, they said that nine days in that direction lay the village ofAute, where the people their friends had plenty of corn, beans, and melons also fish, being near the sea.Taking everything into consideration the poverty of the land and unfavorable reports of the people, etc.; theconstant guerilla tactics of the Indians, wounding our people and horses with impunity from the cover of the

lakes whenever they went for water; and killing a cacique of Tezcuco [an Aztec prince] whom the

Commissary had brought with him we decided to strike for the sea and this Aute we had been hearing about

We got there in five days [a statement contradicted shortly]

The first day out [July 19 or 20] we negotiated lakes and trails without seeing a single native But on thesecond day, while chest-deep in the middle of a lake which hidden logs helped make difficult to cross, a band

of Indians, concealed behind groves and fallen timber, wounded quite a few men and horses and captured ourguide, before we could get through the water

They pressed after us, intending to dispute the narrow passage, but when we turned on them, they fled to thesafety of the lake whence their arrows continued to hit men and beasts The Governor commanded our cavalry

to dismount and charge the Indians afoot The Comptroller [Enríquez] dismounted and charged with them.The Indians retreated into the lake, and we gained the passage

Good armor did no good against arrows in this skirmish There were men who swore they had seen two redoaks, each the thickness of a man's calf, pierced from side to side by arrows this day; which is no wonderwhen you consider the power and skill the Indians can deliver them with I myself saw an arrow buried half afoot in a poplar trunk

All the Indians we had so far seen in Florida had been archers They loomed big and naked and from a

distance looked like giants They were handsomely proportioned, lean, agile, and strong Their bows were asthick as an arm, six or seven feet long, accurate at 200 paces

Indians had expended all their arrows at the first place, so dared not attack now.

Working through yet another such passage the following day, I detected tracks ahead and notified the

Governor in the rearguard The ambush that did develop found us ready and proved harmless But the Indianspursued us onto the open plain We wheeled in a double attack back to the woods, killing two warriors before

we could no longer get at the band I ended up wounded, along with two or three other Christians

: The Ominous Note at Aute

SO WE marched on for eight days, meeting no resistance until we came within a league of our immediate

objective Then, while we ambled along unsuspectingly, Indians surprised our rear An hidalgo named

Avellaneda, a member of the rearguard who had already passed the point of ambush when the attack broke,heard his servant-lad cry out and turned back to assist when, just at that moment, an arrow plunged almost allthe way through his neck at the edge of his cuirass, so that he died presently

We carried him to Aute, where we arrived at the end of nine days out of Apalachen [Aute, as later Frenchmaps concur, appears to have lain a short distance above the mouth of the Apalachicola.]

We found the village deserted and all the houses burned But corn, squash, and beans all beginning to

ripen were plentiful We rested there two days

Then the Governor urged me to locate the sea, which was supposed to be so near and which we felt we hadapproached because of the big river we came upon and named Río de la Magdalena [doubtless the

Apalachicola]

So I went forth the following day, with the Commissary, the captain Castillo, Andrés Dorantes, seven others

on horseback, and fifty afoot We traveled till the hour of vespers, when we reached an inlet of the sea

Oysters abounded, to the joy of the hungry men, and we gave thanks to God for having brought us here.The next morning [August 1] I despatched twenty men to explore the coast They came back the night of theirsecond day out and reported that these inlets and bays were 43 enormous and cut so far inland that it would be

a major undertaking to investigate them properly, also that the coast of the open sea lay yet a long way off

In view of this intelligence and of our limited means, I went back to the Governor We found him and manyothers sick The Indians had attacked the night before and, because of this illness, the soldiers had beendesperately hard put One horse had been killed I reported on my trip and the discouraging nature of thecountry We stayed where we were that day

: Our Departure from Aute

THE NEXT MORNING [August 3] we quit Aute and made it to the place I had just visited The journey wasextremely arduous We did not have horses enough to carry the sick, who kept getting worse every day, and

we knew no cure for the disease [undoubtedly malaria, probably complicated by dysentery]

By the time we reached my previous campsite, it was painfully clear to all that we were unprepared to gofurther Had we been prepared, we still did not know where to go; and the men could not move, most of themlying prone and those able to stand to duty very few I will not prolong this unpleasantness; but you canimagine what it would be like in a strange, remote land, destitute of means either to remain or to get out Ourmost reliable help was God our Lord; we had not wavered in this conviction

But now something happened worse than anything that had gone before The majority of the cavalry plotted todesert, figuring they stood a better chance if unencumbered by the prostrated Governor and largely prostratedinfantry

Since, however, many of the cavalry were hidalgos and well-bred persons, they could not but inform the

Governor and Your Majesty's officers We remonstrated with the plotters on the enormity of their notion untilthey relented and agreed to share the common fate, whatever it might be The Governor then called them allinto his presence and asked their advice, one man at a time, on how to escape that dismal country

A third of our force had fallen seriously ill and was growing worse by the hour We felt certain we would all

be stricken, with death the one foreseeable way out; and in such a place, death seemed all the more terrible.Considering our experiences, our prospects, and various plans, we finally concluded to undertake the

formidable project of constructing vessels to float away in

This appeared impossible, since none of us knew how to build ships, and we had no tools, iron, forge, oakum,pitch, or rigging, or any of the indispensable items, or anybody to instruct us Worse still, we had no food tosustain workers At this impasse, we agreed to consider the matter deeper and ended our parley for the day,each going his way, commending our future to God our Lord

: The Building of the Barges and Our Departure from the Bay

IT WAS His will that next day one of our men should come saying he could make wooden pipes and deerskinbellows Having reached that point where any hope of relief is seized upon, we bade him commence We alsoinstigated the making of nails, saws, axes, and other tools we needed out of the stirrups, spurs, crossbows, andother of our equipment containing iron

For food while the work proceeded, we decided to make four forays into Aute with every man and horse able

to go, and to kill one of our horses every third day to divide among the workers and the sick Our forays went

off as planned In spite of armed resistance, they netted as much as 400 fanegas [about 100 bushels] of corn.

We had stacks of palmettos gathered, and their husks and fibers twisted and otherwise prepared as a substitutefor oakum A Greek, Don Teodoro, made pitch from certain pine resins Even though we had only one

carpenter, work proceeded so rapidly from August 4, when it began, that by September 20 five barges, each

22 elbow-lengths [30 to 32 feet long], caulked with palmetto oakum and tarred with pine-pitch, were finished.From palmetto husks, also horse tails and manes, we braided ropes and rigging; from our shirts we made sails;and from junipers, oars Such was the country our sins had cast us in that only the most persistent searchturned up stones large enough for ballast and anchors Before this, we had not seen a stone in the wholeregion We flayed the horses' legs, tanned the skin, and made leather water-bottles

Twice in this time, when some of our men went to the coves for shellfish, Indians ambushed them, killing tenmen in plain sight of the camp before we could do anything about it We found their bodies pierced all theway through, although some of them wore good armor I have already mentioned the power and precision ofthe Indian archery

Our pilots estimated, under oath, that from the bay we had named The Cross [their first Florida campsite] wehad come approximately 280 leagues to this place In that entire space, by the way, we had seen not a singlemountain nor heard of any

Before we embarked, we lost forty men from disease and hunger, in addition to those killed by Indians BySeptember 22 all but one of the horses had been consumed That is the day we embarked [after consuming thislast horse], in the following order: the Governor's barge, with 49 men; the barge entrusted to the Comptrollerand Commissary, also with 49 men; a third barge in charge of Captain Alonso del Castillo and Andrés

Dorantes, with 48 men; another with 47 under Captains Téllez and Peñalosa; and the final barge, which theGovernor assigned to the Inspector [Solís] and me, with 49 men

When clothing and supplies were loaded, the sides of the barges remained hardly half a foot above water; and

we were jammed in too tight to move Such is the power of necessity that we should thus hazard a turbulentsea, none of us knowing anything about navigation

: The First Month at Sea after Departing the Bay of Horses

THE HAVEN we set out from we gave the name Vaya de Cavallos [Bay of Horses] [Twelve years later,

Indians led a detachment of De Soto's expedition to this cove of Apalachicola Bay, where scattered charcoal,hollowed-out logs that had been used for water troughs, etc., could still be seen.]

We sailed seven days among those waist-deep sounds without seeing any sign of the coast of the open sea Atthe end of the seventh day we came to an island [probably St Vincent's], close to the main From my leadbarge we saw five canoes approaching When we went after them, the Indians abandoned them to us at theisland The other barges passed mine and stopped ahead at some houses on the island, where we found a lot ofmullet and dried eggs of these fish, which were a grateful relief After this repast, we proceeded a couple ofleagues to a strait we discovered between the island and the coast which we named Sant Miguel [Saint

Michael], its being that saint's day [September 29]

We passed through the strait and beached on the coast of the open sea There we made sideboards out of thecanoes I had confiscated, to raise our gunwales another half foot above water level

Then we resumed our voyage, coasting [westward] toward the River of Palms [presumably thinking it closer

or more certainly findable than their own ships to the south], our hunger and thirst growing daily more intensebecause our scant provisions were nearly exhausted and the water-bottles we had made had rotted We wove

in and out of occasional bays, which stretched far inland, but found them all shallow and dangerous

For thirty days we went on like this, every once in a while catching sight of Indian fishermen a poor,

miserable lot

The night of the thirtieth day, when our want of water had become insupportable, we heard a canoe coming

We stopped when we could make it out but, although we called, it went on The night was too dark for

pursuit, so we kept our course Dawn brought us to a little island, where we touched to look for water, butthere was none

While we lay [in the lee] there at anchor, a great storm broke over us For six days while it raged we dared notput out to sea Its already having been five days since we had drunk, at the time the storm erupted, our

extreme thirst forced us to drink salt water Some drank so unrestrainedly that five suddenly died

I state this briefly because I think it superfluous to tell in detail what we went through in those circumstances.Considering where we were and how little hope we had of relief, you may sufficiently imagine our sufferings.Our thirst was killing us; the salt water was killing us Rather than succumb right there, we commendedourselves to God, and put forth into the perilous sea as the storm still raged We headed in the direction of thecanoe we had seen the night we came here [back, off the Alabama coast] The waves overwhelmed our bargemany times this day, and none of us doubted that his death would come any minute

: Treachery in the Night Ashore

IT WAS the will of God, Who often shows His favor in the hour of total despair, that as we doubled a point ofland at sunset we found ourselves sheltered in calm waters [apparently near Pensacola]; and many canoes ofbig, well-built Indians unarmed came out to speak, then paddled back ahead of us

We followed them to their houses at the water's edge close by, and stepped ashore In front of the dwellings

stood many clay jars of water and a great quantity of cooked fish, all of which the cacique of this land offered

our Governor before leading us to his "palace." Their dwellings were made of mats and, so far as we could

tell, were not movable When we [officers] entered the cacique's palace, he regaled us with fish We gave him

some of the corn we had brought, which his people ate in our presence and asked for more We gave them

more The Governor also presented the cacique some trinkets.

In the middle of the night, the Indians fell on us without warning not only the Governor's party in the

cacique's lodge, but also our sick men strewn on the beach [The Joint Report says three men were killed].

The Governor got hit in the face with a rock Some of us grabbed the cacique, but a group of Indians retrieved

him, leaving us holding his robe of civet-marten skins

(These are the finest skins in the world, I believe Their fragrance seems like amber and musk and can besmelled a long way off We saw other robes there, but none to match this one.)

Those of us in the vicinniity where the Governor got hurt managed to put him in his barge and to hasten allbut fifty of our force aboard theirs The fifty stood guard high up on the beach Three times that night theIndians attacked, with such ferocity as to force us back more than a stone's throw each time

Not one of us escaped injury I was wounded in the face If the Indians had had more than their few arrows,they undoubtedly would have done us serious harm At their third onset, Captains Dorantes, Peñalosa, andTéllez with fifteen men ambushed their rear, at which the aggressors broke and fled

: The Disappearance of the Greek

NEXT MORNING [October 28] I broke up thirty of their canoes, which we used for fire; the north wind,which raised yet another storm, confined us to land in the cold When the storm subsided, we returned to sea,navigating three days [three or four, says the Joint Report] We had only a few containers to carry water, socould take but a little supply Soon we were reduced again to the last extremity

Continuing along the coast, we entered an estuary [Mobile Bay] where we saw a canoe of Indians comingtoward us We hailed them and, when they drew close to the Governor's boat, he asked for water They

showed themselves willing to get some if we furnished containers That Greek, Doroteo Teodoro, whom Ispoke of before, said he would go, too The Governor and others failed to dissuade him He took along aNegro, and the Indians left two of their number as hostages

lt was night when the Indians returned, without water in the containers and without the Christians

When these returning lndians spoke to our two hostages, the latter started to dive into the water; but some ofour soldiers held them back in the barge The canoe sped away, leaving us very confused and dejected overthe loss of our comrades

[De Soto's soldiers some twelve years later learned from Indians in this vicinity of the arrival of the barges inneed of water, and of the two men who had remained behind The Indians produced a dagger that had

belonged to Teodoro One suspects that Teodoro insisted on accompanying the canoemen for water because

he thought it his best hope to survive; i.e he had no intention of returning to the barges He and his servantmay, in fact, have lived for some time longer and migrated as slaves to tribes farther inland]

: The Indian Assault and the Arrival at a Great River

WITH MORNING came Indians in many canoes [twenty Joint Report], calling on us to give up our twohostages The Governor replied that he would when the Indians brought the two Christians

Five or six chiefs were distinguishable in the array of natives, who looked comelier, more commanding, andbetter disciplined than any Indians we had yet seen, although not as big as some spoken of before Their hairhung loose and very long, and they wore marten robes like those we had lately taken, except that some of therobes exhibited a strange combination of marten and lion skin in a handsome pattern

They entreated us to go with them, saying they would give us the Christians, water, and many other things.All the while, additional canoes kept reinforcing the first-comers, obviously bent on blocking the mouth ofthat inlet This avenue closed and the country apparently hazardous to remain in, we betook ourselves back toopen sea

There the canoes and our barges floated side by side till noon As the Indians would not return our men, wewould not release theirs They began to hurl stones and darts as us (using slings for the stones) and threatened

to shoot arrows, though we saw no more than three or four bows among them In the midst of this commotionthe wind freshened and they departed

We went on that day [two days, says the Joint Report] till nightfall, when my barge, which kept the lead,discovered a promontory, on the other side of which flowed a vast river [the Mississippi] Off a little island atthe point, I anchored and awaited the other barges

: The Splitting-Up of the Flotilla

THE GOVERNOR did not want to stop there but went into a nearby bay dotted with islets The other bargesjoined him, and we found we could take fresh water from the sea, the river emptying into it in a torrent

To parch corn which we had eaten raw for two days now we scrambled onto an island, but found no

firewood, so decided to go to the river, one league distant behind the point All our efforts to breast the violentcurrent resulted only in our getting carried farther out The north wind rose from shore to drive us the rest ofthe way to the high sea in spite of anything we could do About half a league from shore we had sounded andfound no bottom even at thirty fathoms, convinced that the current somehow interfered with our measurement.[True; the normal delta depth in this vicinity in the 20th century is ten fathoms, or sixty feet.]

For two days we toiled to gain the shore Awhile before dawn of the third, we saw smoke rising at severalpoints and worked toward it We found ourselves in three fathoms of water, but it was still too dark to risklanding where we had seen the columns of smoke So we held up till daylight

When it came, the barges had lost sight of each other and I found mine floating in thirty fathoms Keeping mycourse all day, to the hour of vespers, I at last sighted two other barges As we neared them, I recognized thecloser one as that of the Governor

He asked me what I thought we should do I said, join the barge ahead; by no means abandon her; so the threemight go where God willed, together He said that could not be done; the lead barge was too far out to sea and

he wanted to get to shore If I wished to follow him, he continued, I should order my men to the oars, sinceonly by arm work could the land be gained His old cohort, Captain Pantoja, had advised him thus Pantojaclaimed that if we did not make land that day, we would not in six more, by which time we would havestarved

The Governor's will clearly divulged, I took up my oar, and all my men theirs, and we rowed till nearlysunset But, the Governor having the healthiest and strongest men in his barge, we could not keep up I yelled

to him to throw me a rope so we could stay with him He called back that if he were to do what he hoped thatnight, he must not further sap his men's strength I said that since we were too feeble to carry out his orders tofollow him, he must tell me how he would that I should act He replied that it was no longer a time when oneshould command another; that each must do as he thought best to save himself; that that was what he wasdoing now So saying, he pulled away in his barge

Unable to follow, I steered toward the barge at sea, which waited for me When fairly close, I found her to bethe one commanded by Captain Peñalosa and Captain Téllez

: A Sinking and a Landing

OUR TWO BARGES continued in company for four days, each man eating a ration of half a handful of rawcorn a day Then the other barge was lost in a storm [The Joint Report says this loss occurred the day after thetwo barges joined.] Nothing but God's great mercy kept us from going down, too

It was winter and bitterly cold, and we had suffered hunger and the heavy beating of the waves for many days.Next day, the men began to collapse By sunset, all in my barge had fallen over on one another, close to death.Few were any longer conscious Not five could stand When night fell, only the navigator and I remained able

to tend the barge Two hours after dark he told me I must take over; he believed he was going to die that night

So I took the tiller After midnight I moved over to see if he were dead He said no, in fact was better, andwould steer till daylight In that hour I would have welcomed death rather than see so many around me in such

a condition When I had returned the helm to the navigator, I lay down to rest but without much rest, fornothing was farther from my mind than sleep

Near dawn I seemed to hear breakers resounding; the coast lying low, they roared louder Surprised at this, Icalled to the navigator, who said he thought we were coming close to land We sounded and found ourselves

in seven fathoms The navigator felt we should stay clear of the shore till daylight; so I took an oar and pulled

it on the shore side, wheeling the stern to seaward about a league out

As we drifted into shore, a wave caught us and heaved 54 the barge a horseshoe-throw [about 42 feet] out ofthe water The jolt when it hit brought the dead-looking men to Seeing land at hand, they crawled through thesurf to some rocks Here we made a fire and parched some of our corn We also found rain water The menbegan to regain their senses, their locomotion, and their hope

This day of our landing was November 6

[Cabeza de Vaca's approximations of the days after leaving the Bay of Horses add up to eight or nine morethan the 45 or 46 allowed in his inclusive dates September 22-November 6 He could have experienced thehurling ashore a week or so later than he remembered; but his track of time while battling starvation, Indians,and the periphery of a Gulf hurricane would have been understandably faulty.]

: What Befell Oviedo with the Indians

AFTER WE ATE, I ordered Lope de Oviedo, our strongest man, to climb one of the trees not far off andascertain the lay of the land He complied and found out from the treetop that we were on an island [This wasGalveston Island.] He also said that the ground looked as if cattle had trampled it and therefore that this must

be a country of Christians

I sent him back for a closer look, to see if he could find any worn trails, but warned him not to risk going toofar He went and came upon a path which he followed for half a league to some empty huts The Indians weregone to shoal-flats [to dig rootsj He took an earthen pot, a little dog, and a few mullets and started back

We had begun to worry what might have happened to him, so I detailed another two men to check They methim shortly and saw three Indians with bows and arrows following him The Indians were calling to him and

he was gesturing them to keep coming When he reached us, the Indians held back and sat down on the shore.Half an hour later a hundred bowmen [Joint Report: 200, with joints of cane stuck through holes in their ears]reinforced the first three individuals Whatever their stature, they looked like giants to us in our fright Wecould not hope to defend ourselves; not half a dozen of us could even stand up

The Inspector and I walked out and greeted them They advanced, and we did our best to placate and

ingratiate We gave them beads and bells, and each one of them gave us an arrow in pledge of friendship.They told us by signs that they would return at sunrise and bring food, having none then

: The Indians' Hospitality before and after a New Calamity

AS THE SUN ROSE next morning, the Indians appeared as they promtsed, bringing an abundance of fish and

of certain roots which taste like nuts, some bigger than walnuts, some smaller, mostly grubbed from the waterwith great labor

That evening they came again with more fish and roots and brought their women and children to look at us.They thought themselves rich with the little bells and beads we gave them, and they repeated their visits onother days

Being provided with what we needed, we thought to embark again It was a struggle to dig our barge out ofthe sand it had sunk in, and another struggle to launch her For the work in the water while launching, westripped and stowed our clothes in the craft

Quickly clambering in and grabbing our oars, we had rowed two crossbow shots from shore when a waveinundated us Being naked and the cold intense, we let our oars go The next big wave capsized the barge TheInspector [Solís] and two others held fast, but that only carried them more certainly underneath, where theydrowned

A single roll of the sea tossed the rest of the men into the rushing surf and back onto shore half-drowned

We lost only those the barge took down; but the survivors escaped as naked as they were born, with the loss ofeverything we had That was not much, but valuable to us in that bitter November cold, our bodies so

emaciated we could easily count every bone and looked the very picture of death I can say for myself thatfrom the month of May I had eaten nothing but corn, and that sometimes raw I never could bring myself toeat any of the horse-meat at the time our beasts were slaughtered; and fish I did not taste ten times On top ofeverything else, a cruel north wind commenced to complete our killing

The Lord willed that we should find embers while searching the remnants of our former fire We found morewood and soon had big fires raging Before them, with flowing tears, we prayed for mercy and pardon, eachfilled with pity not only for himself but for all his wretched fellows

At sunset the Indians, not knowing we had gone, came again with food When they saw us looking so

strangely different, they turned back in alarm I went after them calling, and they returned, though frightened

I explained to them by signs that our barge had sunk and three of our number drowned They could see at theirfeet two of the dead men who had washed ashore They could also see that the rest of us were not far fromjoining these two

The Indians, understanding our full plight, sat down and lamented for half an hour so loudly they could havebeen heard a long way off It was amazing to see these wild, untaught savages howling like brutes in

compassion for us It intensified my own grief at our calamity and had the same effect on the other victims.When the cries died down, I conferred with the Christians about asking the Indians to take us to their homes.Some of our number who had been to New Spain warned that the Indians would sacrifice us to their idols Butdeath being surer and nearer if we stayed where we were, I went ahead and beseeched the Indians They weredelighted They told us to tarry a little while, then they would do as we wished

Presently thirty of them gathered loads of wood and disappeared to their huts, which were a long walk away;while we waited with the remainder until near nightfall Then, supporting us under our arms, they hurried usfrom one to another of the four big fires they had built along the path At each fire, when we regained a little

Thus we made their village, where we saw they had erected a hut for us with many fires inside An hour laterthey began a dance celebration that lasted all night For us there was no joy, feasting, or sleep, as we waitedthe hour they should make us victims.

In the morning, when they brought us fish and roots and acted in every way hospitably, we felt reassured andsomewhat lost our anxiety of the sacrificial knife

: News of Other Christians

THAT VERY DAY, I saw an Indian wearing a trinket which I knew we had not given Inquiring whence itcame, we learned from our hosts' signs that it had come from men like ourselves, who bivouacked fartherback At this, I sent two Christians, with two Indians for guides, to contact them

It so happened that the latter were at that moment on their way to see us; for the Indians had told them of us as

us of them My detail met them therefore nearby

They turned out to be Captains Andrés Dorantes and Alonso del Castillo with their entire crew [of 48] Whenthey came up, they were appalled at our appearance and sad that they had no other clothes than what they thenwore

They told us that their barge had capsized a league and a half from here the 5th of this month [i.e., the daybefore Cabeza de Vaca's barge was cast ashore] and that they escaped without losing a thing

We decided to repair their barge, so that those who were strong enough and willing could resume the voyage,while the others stayed until their health allowed them to walk along the coast, and one day God our Lordshould bring us all alike to a land of Christians

We set directly to work but, before we could wrest the barge out of the water, Tavera, a gentleman of ourcompany, died; and then the unseaworthy barge sank

With most of us naked and the weather discouraging walking or swimming across rivers and coves also with

no food supply or even anything to carry one in we resigned ourselves to remaining where we were for thewinter

We did, however, decide that four of our most robust men should set out now for Pánuco, which we believedclose Should God our Lord prosper them, they could report our destitute existence on this island The four

were: Alvaro Fernández, a Portuguese carpenter and sailor; a certain Méndez; Figueroa, an hidalgo from

Toledo; and Astudillo of Zafra all excellent swimmers They took with them an Indian of the island of Auia[which presumably was the Indian name of Galveston, though another island could possibly have been

meant]

: Why We Named the Island "Doom"

WITHIN A FEW DAYS of the departure of the four Christians, the weather turned so cold and stormy thatthe Indians could not pull up roots; their cane contraptions for catching fish yielded nothing; and the hutsbeing very open, our men began to die

Five Christians quartered on the coast came to the extremity of eating each other Only the body of the lastone, whom nobody was left to eat, was found unconsumed Their names were Sierra, Diego Lopez, Corral,Palacios, and Gonzalo Ruiz

The Indians were so shocked at this cannibalism that, if they had seen it sometime earlier, they surely wouldhave killed every one of us In a very short while as it was, only fifteen of the eighty who had come survived.[Strictly speaking, there must have been more than ninety who made it to the island, and sixteen of themproved later to be living]

Then half the natives died from a disease of the bowels [doubtless infected with the soldiers' dysentery] and[the rest] blamed us

When they came to kill us, the Indian who kept me interceded He said: If we had so much power of sorcery

we would not have let all but a few of our own perish; the few left did no hurt or wrong; it would be best toleave us alone God our Lord be praised, they listened and relented

We named this place Malhado the "Island of Doom."

: The Malhado Way of Life

THE PEOPLE we came to know there [Capoques and Han, as identified later in the narrative] are tall andwell-built Their only weapons are bows and arrows, which they use with great dexterity The men borethrough one of their nipples, some both, and insert a joint of cane two and a half palms long by two fingersthick They also bore their lower lip and wear a piece of cane in it half a finger in diameter

Their women toil incessantly

From October to the end of February every year, which is the season these Indians live on the island, theysubsist on the roots I have mentioned, which the women get from under water in November and December.Only in these two months, too, do they take fish in their cane weirs When the fish is consumed, the rootsfurnish the one staple At the end of February the islanders go into other parts to seek sustenance, for then theroot is beginning to grow and is not edible

These people love their offspring more than any in the world and treat them very mildly

If a son dies, the whole village joins the parents and kindred in weeping The parents set off the wails eachday before dawn, again at noon, and at sunset, for one year The funeral rites occur when the year of mourning

is up Following these rites, the survivors wash off the smoke stain of the ceremony in a symbolic purgation.All the dead are lamented this way except the aged, who merit no regrets The dead are buried, except

medicine-men, who are cremated Everybody in the village dances and

makes merry while the pyre of a medicine-man kindles, and until his bones become powder A year later,when his rites are celebrated, the entire village again participating, this powder is presented in water for therelatives to drink

Each man has an acknowledged wife, except the medicine-men, who may have two or three wives apiece Theseveral wives live together in perfect amity

When a daughter marries, she must take everything her husband kills in hunting or catches in fishing to thehouse of her father, without daring to eat or to withhold any part of it, and the husband gets provided byfemale carrier from his father-in-law's house Neither the bride's father nor mother may enter the son-in-law'shouse after the marriage, nor he theirs; and this holds for the children of the respective couples If a man andhis in-laws should chance to be walking so they would meet, they turn silently aside from each other and go acrossbow-shot out of their way, averting their glance to the ground The woman, however, is free to fraternizewith the parents and relatives of her husband These marriage customs prevail for more than fifty leaguesinland from the island

At a house where a son or brother may die, no one goes out for food for three months, the neighbors and otherrelatives providing what is eaten Because of this custom, which the Indians literally would not break to savetheir lives, great hunger reigned in most houses while we resided there, it being a time of repeated deaths.Those who sought food worked hard, but they could get little in that severe season That is why the Indianswho kept me left the island by canoe for oyster bays on the main

Three months out of every year they eat nothing but oysters and drink very bad water Wood is scarce;

mosquitoes, plentiful The houses are made of mats; their floors consist of masses of oyster shells The nativessleep on these shells in animal skins, those who happen to own such

life could be so prolonged in such protracted hunger; though afterwards I found myself in yet greater want, asshall be seen.

The [Han] Indians who had Alonso del Castillo, Andrés Dorantes, and the others of their barge who remainedalive, spoke a different dialect and claimed a different descent from these I lived among They frequented theopposite shore of the main to eat oysters, staying till the first of April, then returning

The distance to the main is two leagues at the widest part of the channel The island itself, which supports thetwo tribes commodiously, is half a league wide by five long [Whether computing by the 2.6 or the 3.1-mileleague, this is a fairly accurate estimate of the actual 1.8-mile average width of Galveston Island and the5.4-mile maximum distance from the mainland; but the treetop estimate of the length is only about half theisland's actual 29.6-mile extent.]

The inhabitants of all these parts go naked, except that the women cover some part of their persons with awool that grows on trees [Spanish moss], and damsels dress in deerskin

The people are generous to each other with what little they have There is no chief All belonging to the samelineage keep together They speak two languages: Capoque and Han

They have a strange custom when acquaintances [distantly separated?] meet or occasionally visit, of weepingfor half an hour before they speak This over, the one who is visited rises and gives his visitor all he has Thelatter accepts it and, after a while, carries it away, often without a word They have other strange customs, but

I have told the principal and most remarkable of them [These last six paragraphs have been transposed fromthe succeeding chapter.]

In April [1529] we went to the seashore and ate blackberries all month, a time of areitos [dance ceremonies] and fiestas among the Indians.

: How We Became Medicine-Men

THE ISLANDERS wanted to make physicians of us without examination or a review of diplomas Theirmethod of cure is to blow on the sick, the breath and the laying-on of hands supposedly casting out the

infirmity They insisted we should do this too and be of some use to them We scoffed at their cures and at theidea we knew how to heal But they withheld food from us until we complied An Indian told me I knew notwhereof I spoke in saying their methods had no effect Stones and other things growing about in the fields, hesaid, had a virtue whereby passing a pebble along the stomach could take away pain and heal; surely

extraordinary men like us embodied such powers over nature Hunger forced us to obey, but disclaiming anyresponsibility for our failure or success

An Indian, falling sick, would send for a medicine-man, who would apply his cure The patient would thengive the medicine-man all he had and seek more from his relatives to give The medicine-man makes incisionsover the point of the pain, sucks the wound, and cauterizes it This remedy enjoys high repute among theIndians I have, as a matter of fact, tried it on myself with good results The medicine-men blow on the spotthey have treated, as a finishing touch, and the patient regards himself relieved

Our method, however, was to bless the sick, breathe upon them, recite a Pater noster and Ave Maria, and pray

earnestly to God our Lord for their recovery When we concluded with the sign of the cross, He willed thatour patients should directly spread the news that they had been restored to health

In consequence, the Indians treated us kindly They deprived themselves of food to give to us, and presented

us skins and other tokens of gratitude

: My Years as a Wandering Merchant

AFTER Dorantes and Castillo returned to the island [from the Han oyster-eating season on the main], theyrounded up all the surviving Christians, who were living somewhat separated from each other They totaledfourteen As I have said, I happened to be opposite on the main at that time participating in the Capoqueblackberry-eating season There I fell desperately ill If anything before had given me hopes of life, thisdashed them

When the other Christians heard of my condition, they gave an Indian the wonderful robe of marten-skins we

had taken from the cacique [in that midnight brawl near Pensacola], to bring them over to visit me [The robe

could have been, in reality, a bribe to make their getaway down the coast but, in any case, they would stillneed a guide to show them where the channel was shallow enough to wade, or a canoe if they were ferried.]Those who came were: Alonso del Castillo, Andrés Dorantes, [his cousin] Diego Dorantes, [Pedro de]

Valdevieso [another cousin of Andrés], Estrada, Tostado, Chaves, Gutierrez, Asturiano (a priest), Diego deHuelva, Estevánico the black [a Moor from the west coast of Morocco], and Benitez When they reached themain, they found another of our company, Francisco de León [evidently a survivor of Cabeza de Vaca's barge,also kept by the Capoques]

The moment they had crossed, my Indians came to tell me and also brought word that Jerónimo de Alaniz [thenotary] and Lope de Oviedo remained on the island But sickness kept me from going [south] with my

comrades; I did not even get to see them

I had to stay with the Capoques more than a year Because of the hard work they put me to, and their harshtreatment, I resolved to flee to the people of Charruco in the forests of the main [Perhaps Cabeza de Vaca'sillness bore on his change in status from a kindly treated medicine-man to a harshly treated slave; but he doesnot trace the transition for us His comrades, living most of the time apart with the Han, apparently underwentthe same drastic reduction in status.] My life had become unbearable In addition to much other work, I had togrub roots in the water or from underground in the canebrakes My fingers got so raw that if a straw touchedthem they would bleed The broken canes often slashed my flesh; I had to work amidst them without benefit

But as a neutral merchant I went into the interior as far as I pleased [the consensus is that he got as far asOklahoma] and along the coast forty or fifty leagues [or at least, as Hallenbeck points out, between the

impassable Sabine marshes to the north and perhaps not quite to Matagorda Bay to the south, where he wouldhave learned far sooner than he did of three Spaniards who survived in that vicinity]

My principal wares were cones and other pieces of sea-snail, conchs used for cutting, sea-beads, and a fruitlike a bean [from mesquite trees] which the Indians value very highly, using it for a medicine and for a ritualbeverage in their dances and festivities This is the sort of thing I carried inland By barter I got and broughtback to the coast skins, red ochre which they rub on their faces, hard canes for arrows, flint for arrowheads,with sinews and cement to attach them, and tassels of deer hair which they dye red

Wherever I went, the Indians treated me honorably and gave me food, because they liked my commodities.They were glad to see me when I came and delighted to be brought what they wanted I became well known;those who did not know me personally knew me by reputation and sought my acquaintance This served mymain purpose, which all the while was to determine an eventual road out.

The hardships I endured in this journeying business were long to tell peril and privation, storms and frost,which often overtook me alone in the wilderness By the unfailing grace of God our Lord I came forth fromthem all Because of them, however, I avoided the pursuit of my business in winter, a season when, anyway,the natives retire inside their huts in a kind of stupor, incapable of exertion [Hallenbeck reasons that Cabeza

de Vaca wintered on the Trinity River or one of its western branches the red ochre he acquired somewhere inthat area is found in the woods around Nacogdoches.]

I was in this [general coastal] region nearly six years [but in this particular vicinity from early winter 1528 toearly winter 1532, a merchant for perhaps 22 months], alone among the Indians and naked like them Thereason I remained so long was my intention of taking the Christian, Lope de Oviedo, away with me Hiscompanion on the island, Alaniz, whom Castillo, Dorantes, and the rest had left behind, died soon after theirdeparture To get Oviedo, the last survivor there, I passed over to the island every year and pleaded with him

to come with me to attempt the best way we could contrive to find Christians Each year he put me off, sayingthe next we would start